Pet Crowdfunding Blog

Matching Funds: Twice the Bang for the Buck

By Steven Mornelli
•
02/20/2019

Most veterinary hospitals work with countless shelter and rescue organizations, providing low-cost or even free treatment for sick and injured animals. It is a given that it is tantamount to impossible to adopt out an ill animal that requires treatment, surgery, medication and so on; the healthier the animal, the easier it is to find a forever home. Hence, shelters do their utmost to return their charges to the best possible health, since very few adopters are willing to take on the care and financial responsibility of an ill or injured animal. To that end, at the grass roots level, countless, local veterinary hospitals work hand in glove with rescues/shelters, oftentimes delivering goods and services at cost or below.

Likewise, veterinary hospitals also carry on their books a good deal of bad debt—services have already been rendered and goods have already been delivered—when they discover that a furry patient’s guardians have maxed out their credit cards. If a deposit had not been secured at the onset, then the hospital would be out that entire sum. Hospitals absorb a great deal of bad debt from very well-intentioned clients, who had, indeed, expected to live up to their obligations.

In instances like this, many hospitals rely on small slush funds, and if they are fortunate, grants and donations from local not-for-profit animal-welfare organizations, community-minded groups, and other “Medicis of Medicine,” who are animal lovers. These “patrons” give charitably to their local vets, instructing the hospitals to use the funds for those clients with a shortfall.

Managing Donations, Funds, & Grants

It is no surprise then that more veterinary hospitals rely on donations and grants from civic-minded and animal-oriented charities to lessen the impact of unpaid bills. However, just having funds in a “rainy-day” kitty for injured animals presents challenges of its own. Managing the funds, the staff, and the back-office paperwork steals time from healing. Additionally, there are ethical considerations: How to allocate the funds? What animals and families are the neediest? Where will the money do the most good—for animals with the best chances of living along, pain-free life, or for seniors, who should live out their remaining years in comfort? And what determines which animals end up the victims of economic euthanasia.

How Waggle Can Help

Waggle, a pioneering and innovative crowdfunding website offers solutions that address various aspects of this conundrum. Arguably, the first pet-centric, crowdfunding site of its kind on the internet, Waggle seeks to end economic euthanasia by presenting fundraising campaigns on line for hundreds of dogs and cats in need. Waggle accepts campaigns from veterinary hospitals, pet guardians, and rescues/shelters. Waggle presents the case histories on its website and all funds raised go directly to the treating hospital, creating complete transparency and trust.

Now, by managing the charitable funds that a veterinary hospital may have at its disposal, Waggle has made it easier for veterinarians to focus on what they want to do—heal!—and not get derailed from their primary goals by being bogged down in the administrative minutiae of managing charitable funds; Waggle recognizes that managing these funds, overseeing staff, getting new channels of operation established, creating communications, and asking for donations, are complex and time-consuming chores—and worse, that management time steals precious hours from the healing part of a practice.

For a 20 percent management fee, Waggle can amplify a practice’s discretionary funds into twice their value. Simply put, Waggle uses a practice’s funds to encourage matching grant awards, for the animals’ campaigns from that practice—campaigns that are showcased on the Waggle website, so that every dollar donated to an animal’s care becomes two dollars, with a matching dollar from the hospital’s fund.

Waggle provides a trusted solution and is a turn-key financial platform where funds are directed to the places where they’re needed most

Working with Waggle to manage a practice’s charitable fund(s), provides many benefits:

Each hospital receives a dedicated landing page, showcasing all of the current and past campaigns (sponsored and unsponsored)

The landing page bears the practice’s logo and hospital information, all of which can be easily shared internally or on social media

Pets who are sponsored by a particular fund can feature that hospital’s logo as a banner, or be white-listed under the Waggle Foundation

Matching contributions will boost public donations

Pets from a practice’s partner rescue/shelter organizations will benefit by having their donations amplified by the matching grants

Future software will facilitate the deposit of public donations directly into a particular fund, enabling the fund for a specific hospital to grow

100% of funds raised are passed to a particular veterinary practice

Our Commitment to You and Your Pet

Waggle is committed to finding the best solutions to the worst problems. Making a fund’s dollars act twice as hard is but one solution to the thorny issue of how to care for so many needy animals. Waggle identifies new ways and best practices for crowdfunding resources for pets in crisis, helping local hospitals understand how to make the most of every dollar in their reserve funds. Waggle works cross-industry with hospitals, community and grass root organization, foundations, private funds, and pet owners to generate donations from third parties to help.

In this fashion, the value of a fund is doubled.

Waggle recognizes that managing these funds, overseeing staff and getting them involved and committed, creating communications and asking for donations, and so on, is a complex and time-consuming undertaking.

Let us help to achieve double the funding through matching contributions on the Waggle website

Here is How it Works

A hospital fund is established at Waggle (minimum $5,000); the fee is 20 percent of the initial balance.

Only pets introduced onto waggle.org via a particular hospital can receive match-donations (versus animals which are self-registered by pet guardians). This provides additional peace of mind for a hospital’s original donor.

Pet guardians are required to have a Facebook account and be willing and able to share a minimum of three times during the 30-day campaign, ensuring greater publicity and wider visibility.

Above all else, by showcasing animals in need on the Waggle website, particularly in a matching grant category, together we bring public awareness to the heart-wrenching issue of economic euthanasia, underscoring the message that it can be curbed—and one day, ended. Which is what Waggle is all about.